Review: ‘Whip It’ on Blu-ray
When people get excited about something, they blossom and their affection can become contagious. Such is the case for screenwriter Shauna Cross, who stumbled across the world of roller derby and decided to get her story into print. She wrote it first as a young adult novel, Derby Girl
and then managed to option it to Drew Barrymore’s production company. Barrymore loved the material so much she decided to turn it into her directorial debut.
Whip It [Blu-ray]
opened last fall to generally positive reviews but middling box office, vanishing without much of a splash, which is a shame because the movie is pretty good and worth your attention. Out this week from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, the movie is available in the usual formats with the Blu-ray edition containing a digital copy disc.
Much as Cross, who wrote the screen adaptation of her book, came to love the rough and tumble world, so too does Bliss Cavendar (Ellen Page). A high school senior, Bliss is the dorky good girl who goes to school and lets her mother push her into competing on the pageant circuit. Brooke (Marcia Gay Harden) is a former beauty queen now working as a mail carrier, eking out a lower middle class existence with her husband Earl (Daniel Stern) and is somewhat smothering with her love and attention. A chance encounter at a store acts as Bliss’ entrée into the roller derby world and after watching one competition with her best friend Pash (Alia Shawkat), decides to try out. Her speed earns the awkward athlete a spot on the team and the beginning of a new world.
Pretty quickly, Bliss, now dubbed Babe Ruthless, is accepted by the team who become a circle of friends despite the disparity in their ages. Now, Bliss has to juggle school, work at the local BBQ joint, the pageants and the derby. Along the way, her arrival acts as the catalyst the team needs to evolve from losers to competitors. And she meets Oliver (Landon Pigg), the somewhat older guitarist in a band. Cue the violins.
Harden and Stern make an odd but effective couple of parents, grounding the film every time it feels ready to speed off track. (more…)

It used to be, actors could stretch by performing “ugly”, burying themselves under layers of makeup or by playing disadvantaged people such as Dustin Hoffman’s [[[Rain Man]]] or Larry Drake’s Benny on LA Law. The current favorite seems to be playing people with Asperger syndrome as popularized with Christian Clemson’s award winning work on [[[Boston Legal]]]. As with anything on a David E. Kelly series, the portrayal tended to be over-the-top or poignant and rarely anything in between.

Ricky Gervais is a terrific writer and comedian but since the success of [[[The Office]]], he has struggled to fully realize his ideas in the limitations of a motion picture. Last year’s
Screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga ([[[21 Grams]]], [[[Babel]]]) was determined to take greater control over his stories by directing and made his debut in the well-intentioned [[[The Burning Plain]]]. The movie, out now on DVD from Magnolia Home Entertainment, played at various festivals before receiving an unsuccessful theatrical release. Starring Charlize Theron and Kim Basinger, the movie is told in Arriaga’s patented nonlinear manner, but keeps us at arm’s distance from the characters.

Our pop culture-obsessed world can catapult people at any time from obscurity to fame. It could be a flash in the pan or something longer lasting, with timing and circumstance determining someone’s longevity. Actual talent may help but over the last decade has proven to be less and less important.
You have to admire Robert Venditti. He was working for Top Shelf, had an inspiration for a story examining how society could be changed if everyone used an avatar, a surrogate if you will, rather than interact with one another. Management loved the idea, bought the story and in 2005,

BBC’s retelling of the [[[Robin Hood]]] legend began in 2006 and quietly ended in 2009, never quite living up to the hype and expectations. The series was incredibly anachronistic and its budgetary limitations were clearly evident throughout its 36 episodes. When the series was good, it was highly entertaining and when it was less good, it was tolerable.
